Space shuttle

I just watched the shuttle landing from NASA.com. That stuff just amazes me.

16 minutes ago they were just over Houston travelling at 12,000 mph and 39 miles of altitude. Now they are on the ground. A perfect landing and the optics from the heads up display of the co pilot were awsome.

Graham

A perfect landing

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It ain't like they have a choice ya know, no such thing as a go round with the space shuttle. Watch the launch & figure out how much power it takes to get that crate airborne.

What a freaking rush that must be to firewall the throttles,

Jeff said:

A perfect landing

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It ain't like they have a choice ya know,

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At 6 minutes before landing they are 86 miles away. At 4 minutes before landing the Commander is flying it in a 330 degree circle to line it up, with 1 minute before touch down they are still over 11,000 in altitude with the Commander at the wheel.

They don't have much choice at all, they also have no room for error at those speeds. And it ain't as if they can spool it up for a missed approach.

Just amazing!

Graham

I remember being in FL a few miles away one moring watching a Shuttle launch. The ground just rumbled under my feet and the air pushed me around. Never will forget that.

I remember back in the 60's being in the tower in ND doing my once a month duty for pay purposes routine...just off duty drinking coffee when over the air came a call for bases in Centrral ConUS (USA) to stand by. It seems that a USAF aircraft just minutes out of S.E.A. was clearing Hawaii and was "committed" to Cental ConUS.....could not shut down in time for the West Coast and couldn't make it to FL. Too much student trafic in Texas, too much brass in the air around Nebraska, so North Dakota, you get him! He reports one of two engines out and yet his air & ground speed were unbelievable! We watched the radar screen as he chewed up 500 miles at a time like in a blink of an eye. Next thing we know this long black bird was on our three mile runway with chutes' deployed taking all three miles to get stopped. That was the first time any of us ever saw or knew of an SR-71. I just remember the tower officer in charge saying "I'm glad this thing is ours and not theirs!" I think much of what was learned from the Blackbird went into the shuttle.

HoboKen

Work with a man who maintained the SR-71. Fascinating aircraft.

About 5 years ago, we had a stop over here at my little airport by the shuttle strapped to the back of a 747. It was a sight to behold as the shuttle seemed like it was 2/3 the size of the 747. Just unbelieveable the 747 can get that big sucker off the ground.

If I'm not mistaken, out little airport is a backup shuttle landing site. It sports a huge long runway and is used by the USAF to train on KC10 tankers and AWACS. Barksdale AFB is only 60 miles away, and along with Minot, are the two largest SAC bases in the world. I don't miss the annual air show there.

West

Just unbelieveable the 747 can get that big sucker off the ground

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Pretty safe bet neither the Shuttle nor the 747 have any extraneous payload.

Check this out!!

SR-71 online. Photographic record of each of the Blackbirds built (including the one on display in front of the Space and Rocket Center here in Huntsville).

Read the operations manual, or buy a copy on CD ROM for $14.00 or hardcopy for $90.00

http://www.sr-71.org/

Then check out this fly by movie.

http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/movies/

Wow! Great SR-71 pictures.

It reminded me that when we all came out the next moring to watch the repared SR-71 take off. It just cleared the runway and went streight up!
For years we were not permitted to talk about it.

HoboKen

Isn't the internet a marvelous place, for some things?

Graham

So many interesting things about that plane.

It leaked jet fuel like a sieve, because the skin pieces were slipjointed together so that the titanium could expand with the heat caused by friction.

Airframe was 90% Titanium.

Tires filled with nitrogen for heat rejection.

World Speed record for Jet Aircraft set on 28 July 1976 at 2,193.167 MPH. Smokin'!!

We're in the flight path for the Tournamnet of Roses Parade and Rosebowl, which is about 3 miles away as the crow flies, except on New Years morning when at precisely 8AM everyone on our block is outside waiting for the B-2 Stealth Bomber to fly by to start the parade. So gracefull, and it sounds like nothing else in the air! [img:607:791]http://www.strangemilitary.com/images/content/1465.jpg[/img]

california91207 said:

We're in the flight path for the Tournamnet of Roses Parade and Rosebowl, which is about 3 miles away as the crow flies, except on New Years morning when at precisely 8AM everyone on our block is outside waiting for the B-2 Stealth Bomber to fly by to start the parade. So gracefull, and it sounds like nothing else in the air! [img:607:791]http://www.strangemilitary.com/images/content/1465.jpg[/img]

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One of those visited the, now defunct, Hamilton Air Show a few years ago. It was amazing!!! Tough to see from the distance, but once she passed over and did a sweep the image in the sky was almost chilling.

I used to get up to the airport the day before and the day after the "Air show" to see the better air show. These guys, and gals, love to fly and would put on the best show for the folks on the ground that would be working the show and for the people in the tower.

Graham

As I recall, there was no roar from this plane on the approach. An F-18 coming at you grows and grows in volume but it's moving too fast to do anything about right? By the time you notice it, it's too late to get out of it's way. And when it passes, it screams.

The B-2, as I remember just soared over, did a lovely arched circle and came back in. There was a bit of a rumble behind it, and the crowd went dead silent for this thing too, but I don't recall it being anything like the F-18.

Graham

I witnessed a shuttle landing at Edwards AFB out here in the Mojave in the early 90's. Absolutely awesome. And NASA's SR71 was in the hangar. I saw one of those take off from March AFB many years ago and the "straight up" description is exactly correct! Sucker went straight up til it was out of sight. There is one on display at the March Field Air Museum now.

http://www.marchfield.org/
[img:985:439]http://www.marchfield.org/sr71_oct2004.jpg[/img]






I still have to take bonine to fly a commercial airliner.

Grahm,

Notice in this picture the black area at the back of the engines.

[IMG:350:250]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/MrP_at_Large/b2_3.jpg[/img]

The exhaust from the engines exits the engine on top of the wing, which reflects the sound from the engine upward. Also the intake is also over the wing which reflects the sound up. That same technique also hides the infrared signature of the engines from a heat seaking missile coming up looking for the plane. The inlet and exhaust location for the engines is one of its biggest stealth features, and is one of those things that I look at regularly and think, "dang that's simple, why didn't I think of that"!









Here are a couple of good pictures. Coming straight on you would be more likely to see a Cesna 152 than this thing.
[IMG:350:250]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/MrP_at_Large/b2_7.jpg[/img]
[IMG:375:300]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/MrP_at_Large/B-2_D4C-122599-01_375x300.jpg[/img]

I quess we completely hijacked this thread. I don't remember what it was about.

Thread was about the space shuttle, and it was mine to start with so it's not hijacked at all.

You're right about that stuff seeming simple. I would suspect though that one of the reasons it cost over a billion dollars per unit is it's simplicity. :shock:

Heres a great shot over the top.

[IMG:799:548]http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r126/Graham_61/Misc/B-2_Spirit_3.jpg[/img]

Graham

I made an arrested landing on the flight deck of the USS Ranger once in the South China Sea. They flew us out there on the "mail plane", also affectionately known as a COD. It was a prop job with rear facing seats and wings that folded up for easy storage. Hopefully, none ever folded up prematurely

We used to like to watch flight ops at night, especially when they were launching the F-4 Phantoms, they looked like two roman candles taking off into the night sky.

I also worked on the Grumman A-6's and EA6B's up there by Jeff in the great Pacific Northwest - Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. A-6's were the gawdawful loudest, whiniest aircraft ever made.